Kosei

17" Wheel Kosei K1 TS

[9/17/2013] Reviewed by: James C. Makin

Applicable to: '99-'05 1.8 liter

Wheels Kosei K1 TS 17 X 7 38+

I ordered them and they arrived sooner than I expected. They were double boxed for protection and there were no imperfections on the wheels. Center caps and Lugs were all there. No problems on the install.

I needed lighter wheels, these are about 14 lbs. What a difference, the suspension
worked great, no more bone jarring ride. Much better acceleration. The wheels look good too. If you need a light 17" wheel I recommend you get these.

Under 30 minutes to remove completely

Kosei K1 Racing Wheels - 15x7 30mm offset

Kosei K1 Racing Wheels, Silver - 15x7 Now with 30mm offset, made in Thailand, sourced from Tire Rack. Does not come with center caps. Comes with plastic centering rings. Combo comes with lug nuts that are much heavier than stock, but have a taller seat needed to not scrape the paint on the wheel.

Note, offset is now 30mm instead of 38mm, so a 195/50-15 tire is close to fender on my stock ride height 1997 Miata. Bearing stress has likely increased. Wheels are light and look fantastic, other than my rusty brake calipers being quite visible. Upside is being easy to check pads, and perhaps not even needing to remove the wheel to bleed! Big brakes would look better with all the space between spokes and straight inner wheel wall. Stock wheels bend in towards the rotors, making them look less puny.
Grip with new, sticky summer tires on the street is fantastic. Low weight keeps them glued down over bumps. If I still raced, I'd be happier with the offset, but its still OK on the street. Manufacturing process and quality exceed stock wheels.

Generic center caps are far less expensive than Kosei ones, though I've not measured for size yet. 38-42mm offset is better for a 1997 Miata. My original 14". 14x6, 45mm ofset wheels are now on my snow tires.

Under 30 minutes to remove completely

Kosei K1 TS

[10/27/2004] Reviewed by: Sean

Applicable to: '99 + 1.8 liter

17x7 Wheel from Tire Rack. Weight 14.1 lbs

I was looking for a nice looking wheel for my 01 and saw these
wheels on Tire Racks website and fell in love with them immediately. The picture
doesn't do this wheel justice. It looks more beautiful in person. Be prepared
to for lots of stares and questions about these wheels. They come with two valve
stems per wheel so the question I always get is why? Well according to Grant
at Tire Rack, Over in Japan when during races what they'll do it bleed the air
from the bottom valve stem and fill with Nitrogen from the top. I don't have
to worry about doing that but they do look neat.

Couple of things that happened to me. The valve stems and caps
are anodized red. They seem to be pretty popular with Valve stem cap thieves
in my area. A week after I had the wheels someone stole them. All 8 of them!!!
I ordered new ones from Tire Rack at 4 bucks a piece. I also put loctite on
all the threads and tightened them down so no one without a wrench is able to
get them off. Also the anodized red gets scratched easily so use care when filling
the tires or cleaning them.

Over 30 minutes to remove completely

Kosei K1 Racing Wheel 17x7.5

[8/17/2002] Reviewed by: Joshua
West - jawest32@yahoo.com

Applicable to:

Silver 17x7.5 K1s

One has cracked after less than 1yr/less
than 20k miles. 1.5in long crack starting from the bead, on the inside of the
wheel, heading towards the center. This occured after NO particular event. There
are NO marks on the tire or rim. They were driven on the street and track.

They look great. They are light.
Be VERY careful!!!

Not an installed item

Kosei K1 Racing - 17"x7.5" - 35mm offset - White

This is quite a popular wheel. You
can see a picture of it in almost any Tire Rack ad in almost any car enthusiast
magazine. Mine are the white painted ones. These wheels are lightweight. Mine
weight 16 pounds. Pretty impressive for a massive 17x7.5 wheel.

I bought these wheels in early August
and loved the combination of looks and more feedback thanks to the 40 series
tires. I cheaped out on the tires but I figure I spent enough in getting the
whole package. Well on to my "experience". I was driving down a windy
road after it had just rained. Trying to get on a freeway onramp, my front wheels
lost traction and I went speeding into the curb, i.e. MAJOR understeer! Long
story short, my car saw about $7.5K in damages. What truly impressed me about
the whole ordeal was that only one wheel was damaged. I jumped a 6" curb
and only the leading wheel was damaged. This wheel was turned in the direction
of the turn so it smacked right up into the curb with the outside part of the
wheel meeting the curb first. Needless to say, the section of the rim between
two spokes broke off.

This next part is the incredible
part. Not one of the other rims even got bent! I was expecting some kind of
damage but nothing. Again, I had 40 series tires on these rims so there is not
much to cushion the rims. Well, that's my testimonial regarding how strong these
relatively lightweight wheels are. Great product. Could easily sell for twice
the price. I got them for $150 each from a local wheel shop that matched (and
sourced) Tire Rack's special at the time. A real bargain with performance to
boot!

I installed the K1's with Kumho 195/50-VR15 ESCTA 712
tires. Wheels and tires look great and the car rides and handles excellent up to
the dreaded 65mph mark. Have started to experience the 65mph shimmy since
installing the wheels/tires.

In the process of getting the tires trued and rebalanced.
Hopefully, I'll get reimbursed by the Tirerack for this expense. Overall, very
pleased with the Kosei K1 wheels.

Under 30 minutes to remove completely

Kosei Racing Seneka and Pirelli P6000

The 15" Racing Seneka wheels, at 15 pounds, are only
a few pounds heavier than the 14" stock wheels. Combined with P6000, they
provide great handling with minimal squeal when pushed to the limits. The white
painted center with polished lip matches nicely with my white Miata with tan
top.

My recently acquired white '94 Miata needed new wheels and
tires badly. Since the Miata is short on horsepower, the weight of the wheel
took priority in my search. Second came tire performance followed by pricing and
then appearance. Scouring over magazine ads and local newspaper ads, I found the
perfect combination at tires.com. They were very knowledgeable courteous.

Kosei K-1 Racing Wheels

Kosei K-1 Racing wheels. 6 spoke. 15 x 7 size. +38mm
Offset. Plastic hub centric spacers, blue anodized valve stems (cool!!!), chrome
lug nuts, socket for lug nuts all included. Hub covers are not included, but may
be ordered separately. It seems that units from other wheels that Kosei makes
will fit, but for whatever reason, this wheel does not come with one.

Excellent finish and workmanship. Look great on the car,
and absolutely no problems whatsoever. If anything, I would say that the car
handles better. I used Bridgestone RE 730's and the Bridgestones have a much
faster steering response than my Dunlop SP-8000's did, and the car feels just as
nimble as before. It does go straight with minimal attention, but it took a few
days for them to break in. It does have a rougher ride than the Dunlops, but
this may be because the Dunlops had a much softer side wall, as well as the
difference in tire profile. I ran 32 psi with the Dunlops, and I now have 27 psi
in the Bridgestones, which helped.

I was initially apprehensive about deviating from the
factory offset. The Tire Rack was adamant that this would be the proper offset
and said they guarantee their "fitments". I talked to the guys at R
Speed and they also said that 38 was ok. Basically the offset is the distance
from the center of the wheel to the hub. 45mm is stock, but that's with a 5
1/2" wide wheel. If you stick with the stock offset and go 1 1/2"
wider (like I'm doing), it would mean that all the extra width would be on one
side towards the center of the car. If you go with the 38mm offset, you are
closer to splitting the extra width evenly, and this makes more sense to me.
Incidentally, I never had much of the "65 MPH shake" before, but now
it is definitely there on some roads. Chassis braces will be next on my agenda.
Overall though, I am very happy. The 38mm offset has had no negative effect that
I can feel, and the car still sticks like glue. The wheels look incredible!

Kosei K1

These are the Kosei K1's, 5 spoke. They come in silver or white,
from 15-17 inch rim size.

I brought these through the good people at tire rack. Ordered on
Mnday, they confirmed it on Tuesday, and on Thursday afternoon I went on ride around the
block (it turned into few blocks) testing them out. To go with the wheels I got Yokohama
Paradas (205/45 ZR 16), they really complement each other. The info I got was the 15's
weigh 13.5 lbs and the 16's 15lbs with 40 offset. they come in silver and white, but I
opted for the white, since It goes with the theme. Looks awsome in the car, especially
with my body kit. The factory 14's looked dwarfed after the adition and the new 16's give
it a intimidating look.

I've gotten quite a few stares and on looker question about the
rims. I'm not quite positive about the weight and offset change had on my car but it just
seems slighly off what it used to be. An acceptable compremise in my opinion. The ride is
a bit harder, not sure exactly it's the rims, or the tires or both that add the extra
jolt. But all in all I think it was good investment.